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This Is the End of the Senate. It’s Harry Reid’s Fault.

By SEN. LAMAR ALEXANDER

January 08, 2014

The United States Senate is starting the New Year the same way it ended the last one: with the Democratic leader bringing up legislation that hasn’t been considered by committee, then threatening to cut off amendments, cut off debate and cut off votes.

The Senate, “the one touch of authentic genius in the American political system”—as William S. White described it in Citadel: The Story of the U.S. Senate—is destroying itself.

In their 2013 book, The American Senate: An Insider’s History, former Senate historian Richard A. Baker and the late Neil MacNeil say the principal source of this “genius” has been the opportunity for extended debate. If 60 of 100 senators must agree to end debate, usually this encourages consensus on crucial issues. “Whatever the unsavory aspects of the word and the tactics,” Baker and MacNeil write, “the filibuster then and later helped shape the Senate into the most powerful legislative body in the world.”

Referring to the filibuster in 2010 during his final address, former Democratic Majority Leader Sen. Robert Byrd warned, “We must never, ever tear down the only wall—the necessary fence—this nation has against the excesses of the executive branch and the resultant haste and tyranny of the majority.”

Yet today’s Senate is destroying its capacity to forge consensus, to protect minority views from popular passions and to counter presidential excesses by:

Less advice and consent: On Nov. 21, the Democratic majority decided 60 votes are no longer needed to cut off debate on most presidential appointees. So try asking a nominee: Will the National Security Agency stop monitoring the German chancellor and the pope? Now, there will be no response, because a majority can ram through any nominee. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said in 2006 that allowing the majority to cut off debate would be the “end of the Senate.” Apparently he changed his mind.

Operating without rules: Democratic Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, a dissenter, said on Nov. 21, “A Senate in which a majority can change the rules at any time is a Senate with no rules.” It is as if the Red Sox, finding themselves behind in the ninth inning in the World Series, added a couple of innings to make sure they won. When he wrote the Senate rules, Thomas Jefferson said: “It is much more material that there should be a rule to go by, than what that rule is.”